Mike D’Antoni is a candidate to be the Nuggets’ next head coach. (Ethan Miller, Getty Images)

There is rarely a mention of Mike D’Antoni that doesn’t include “seven seconds or less,” a reference to his revolutionary style of play that made the Phoenix Suns one of the most exciting teams in the league in the mid-2000s. Led by point guard Steve Nash and complemented by Amar’e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion, the Suns brought a new brand of play to the NBA, with speed, pick-and-rolls and open 3s.

McCallum changed the game in his own right with the book and his near three decades of covering the NBA for SI. He’s he remained close to D’Antoni, and Nash, over the years, so when word got out that the Nuggets, with whom he started his NBA career in 1997, had interviewed D’Antoni for their head-coaching job, McCallum was kind of enough to offer his thoughts:

Do you think D’Antoni is opposed to a rebuild?

MCCALLUM: “Let’s preface this by saying as close as I am to him, I don’t know. But my best guess is that I can’t see him taking a rebuilding job. Essentially, the Knicks were a rebuilding job and, as weird as it sounds, the Lakers kind of turned into one. They were two not very good teams. The Knicks were clearly a rebuilding job. The Lakers job is tough to turn down, even if they have you and me in the backcourt.

“My answer to that is, I don’t know. We haven’t talked specifically — we always talk around this stuff — but it would surprise me to see him take a rebuilding job.”Read more…

On Wednesday, he got down to the business of dispelling some myths about his game.

“In college they kind of saw me as a low-post guy,” Avila said. “I can take the ball off the dribble a little bit, but I really want them to see that I can shoot the ball. I can dribble it as well, and just be an all-around player. That’s the biggest thing for me.” Read more…

FILE – In this March 25, 2015, file photo, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) reacts after scoring during an NBA basketball game against the Portland Trail Blazers in Salt Lake City. The Jazz wrapped up a better-than-expected season Wednesday, April 15, and now look to a future in which expectations have risen. (Rick Bowmer, The Associated Press)

During the regular season I do a bi-weekly mailbag. But just because the season ends doesn’t mean the questions do. Many of you have asked me questions about the team on Twitter, at my handle: @dempseypost.

I’ve answered some here, and will continue to at least semi-regularly do so as long as you guys keep ’em coming. This is the first installment of the very unoriginal name: Twitterbag.

@dempseypost serious question, do you think we lost the Gobert-Foye trade? Seems like we got fleeced.

Josh: This is a loaded question. First off, it was a Gobert-Erick Green trade, but we know what you’re getting at. The initial issue stems from the annual problem the NBA has always had with draft night trades: The picks are swapped, but since the league doesn’t finalize those trades until after the draft ends, the two teams have to pick a player for the other. Consequently, it looks like one player was traded for another, when, in fact, each team is instructed who to pick when the traded selections come up.

So, in other words, Utah told the Nuggets to pick Rudy Gobert with the 27th pick in the first round of the 2013 draft. The Nuggets then instructed Utah to pick Erick Green with 46th pick, a second-round selection. It’s hard to know what the Nuggets would have done with that pick had they kept it.

The change was quick, the staff was depleted and Melvin Hunt had to adjust on the fly.

Friday night’s game at San Antonio is Hunt’s 17th game as interim head coach since taking over for the fired Brian Shaw on March 3. Though things were coming at him at warp speed, and though his staff was reduced to a skeleton crew, Hunt says none of his first foray into head coaching has felt like drinking from a fire hydrant.

“It doesn’t,” Hunt said.

He credits the remaining staff, who have all taken on added responsibility, for keeping things together over the last month. Read more…

The game was also the Nuggets’ first win over Minnesota since Kevin Garnett’s return to the Wolves. Afterward, the ever-outspoken Garnett echoed the sentiment of others (Paul George, David West) in the league who feel the Nuggets “quit” on Brian Shaw and ultimately led to his ouster.

Asked if he expected the Nuggets to come out with the energy they played with Wednesday in the wake of Shaw’s firing and the months of drama surrounding the team, Garnett told reporters: “No. To be honest, they quit on Brian Shaw. I thought they’d quit again. A quitter is a quitter. That was my take on that. If you got any kind of self-pride about your future, then you want to anticipate someone playing hard. But, no, I wasn’t really concerned about the Denver Nuggets or how they were going to come out. I was more concerned about us, and us going forward and being better.”

The Denver Nuggets fired head coach Brian Shaw on Tuesday. ( John Leyba, The Denver Post)

The Denver Nuggets fired coach Brian Shaw on Tuesday and named assistant Melvin Hunt interim coach for the rest of the season. The move came as somewhat of a surprise since the Nuggets’ front office had said repeatedly that Shaw would remain as the team’s head coach this season, despite their struggles. But as the team’s record continued to slide, calls for Shaw’s ouster grew louder.

Shortly after The Denver Post reported Shaw’s firing, fans, media and even one of his former players spoke up.

#Pacers were in practice when news of B-Shaw being fired came out. All very aware of the news, guys that were here with him were upset.

Faried, who is coming off somewhat of a breakout summer with Team USA during the FIBA World Cup, was voted as the league’s best role player (tied with San Antonio’s Boris Diaw), and earned the fourth-most votes for the best offensive rebounder (7.1 percent), as well as the toughest player in the league (7.4 percent, tied with Sacramento’s Reggie Evans).

Faried also garnered the fifth-most votes (7.4 percent) among players expected to have a breakout season in 2014-15.

The NBA has never had to twist Danilo Gallinari’s arm to get him to participate in its Basketball Without Borders program.

After all, he was once an attendee.

Though BWB, Gallinari was able to get up-close to NBA players as a teenager growing up in Italy. Now he’s found himself on the other side of the coin – five or six times, he estimates – mentoring young players as a league ambassador. The program is a labor of love. Gallinari went through his latest BWB trip in Rome this week, a camp also attended by Nuggets assistant coach Melvin Hunt.

As a coach, Walberg would put four players on the perimeter and, as one player attacked the basket, the offensive post player would open space by moving to the weak side of the lane. Meanwhile, the other three perimeter players would rotate accordingly. If that particular dribble-drive play failed, the next ball handler would just dribble and drive again.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.